SEG Solar, the new name for the U.S. division of Seraphim, announced its plans to start a solar module manufacturing plant in Houston, Texas, with an annual manufacturing capacity of 2 GW. The factory should begin construction at the end of 2022 and be fully operational by mid-2023, according to a press release.
The plant will have three production lines capable of producing TOPCon solar modules with 182-mm (M10) or 210-mm (G12) solar cells. The Chinese division of Seraphim announced earlier this year it was making panels with the largest wafer size of 210-mm.
“SEG is very excited to enter the U.S. manufacturing market at this time,” said Jim Wood, CEO of SEG, adding that the establishment of this facility now makes sense on a number of different levels due to the recent incentives for solar manufacturing included in the Inflation Reduction Act and the current legislative climate.
The plant is expected to create as many as 500 new jobs in the local Houston area.
Seraphim previously had a solar module assembly facility in Mississippi, but the plant was shut down in 2018 without much explanation. Solar Power World later discovered that there was a licensing issue with using the Seraphim name in the United States, which may have contributed to why the company has “rebranded” to SEG (which stands for Seraphim Energy Group).